


Coloured Pencils

by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Captivity, Complete, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Meetings, Gen, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Past Torture, Past Violence, Pre-Relationship, Surprisingly Soft Considering The Tags, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27591190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion/pseuds/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion
Summary: Alexander Lightwood has no recollection of who he is, or why he was taken. Magnus Bane is part of a group of rebels searching desperately for something important.The two collide in a cell, and morning breaks on something new.“I’ve never had a test like this,” Alec said, pressing closer to the bars anxiously.Magnus looked a little bemused. “You know, I’ve been called challenging, vexing, taxing, and testing, but never a test.”
Relationships: Magnus Bane & Alec Lightwood, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 34
Kudos: 167





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this aeons ago, and then forgot about it. It was supposed to be this big long plotty fic about Alec recovering and developing his relationship with Magnus and the resistance group, but true to form, I didn't write more than the first two chapters, Luckily, those stand well enough on their own. Consider it a peek into a possible world I had imagined for them, I suppose!
> 
> Warnings: every bad thing that happens is in the past and not really relived, if that helps at all, and there are no extra graphic or gore-y details. Obviously, Alec had been captured for however long, so there are repercussions. There isn't much fluff in here. There are mentions of poisoning, drugs, injuries, pain, isolation etc. Again, I don't describe it in graphic detail, I just used the tag just in case, and I wanted to make sure I gave a proper list in case it disturbed some people.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve never had a test like this,” Alec said, pressing closer to the bars anxiously. 
> 
> Magnus looked a little bemused. “You know, I’ve been called challenging, vexing, taxing, and testing, but never a test.”

White walls and steel bars, far too slim to fit through, offered no entertainment. The cell was dull, sterile: it was the monotonous tick of a clock, made claustrophobic. Nothing moved in this place barring Alec, and even that was a rare occurrence these days. 

He drifted listlessly across the room in a mockery of agitated pacing, but mostly he lay flat on his cot and stared at the smooth white ceiling. Everything here was white. Three posters had been stuck to the far wall, each one covered in bland propaganda, messages for those that insisted on fighting for the wrong side. Not that Alec knew which side was which anymore, or who fought for who, or why there was fighting at all.

A desk filled one corner, and a pot of sharp pencils stood a little too close to the edge, the only bright spot in the room. 

Alec had entertained the thought of picking up those pencils many times and putting them to someone else’s skin rather than paper. Anything could be a weapon in the right hands, and when he wasn’t so lethargic that he felt like he was sleeping with his eyes open, he thought his hands could be the right ones. 

He was a fighter. He didn't know why or how, but his hands remembered the hilt of a blade, the coarse wooden arch of a bow. He was a fighter, and that was why he was here. 

The people keeping him inside the cell didn't often show their faces, but he wanted them to sometimes. Not just so he could destroy them, but so he could feel not quite so alone. 

_Stupid, _he thought, scoffing to himself. Stupid that he’d grown so alone that he wanted his captors to keep him company.__

__Either the eyes behind the cameras didn’t think he was brave enough to fight back, or they hadn’t thought about the potential threat of coloured pencils. Or maybe it was a test, Alec thought, as he sat stiffly on the starched bedspread. They were always giving him tests. Tests were how he operated now. At times they waited to see how long it took before he relaxed, and when he finally did, darts flew from invisible pin-pricks in the walls, and his world went black. Poison filled his food, and they studied the way he shook and bit his lip to stop the screams._ _

__They let him out, sometimes, or left the door unlocked, showing him possible escape routes and then waiting, tasers clasped in their gloved hands, masks over their faces, to capture him again. He had never made it very far. It was a game of cat and mouse, except the mouse was weak and starved, and the cat had an army at its beck and call._ _

__The pencils had only been there for two weeks, a new addition to his cell, so it was possible that they were watching, waiting to see what he would do with them. They liked to call it Alec’s room, rather than his cell, when the voices came through the walls to order him about. It was as if they thought the word might trick him. As if he had been brought here when he was a baby and soothed to sleep in a cot, as if he had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling when he was a teenager and written angsty poetry about his first love—and wasn't that a funny thought, first love, a thing he couldn't remember—under the bed covers, as if there were pencil markings on the wall to show how much he had grown over the years. As if it wasn’t a white room with a lock on the outside of the barred door. As if there were windows. As if this was _home.__ _

__Sighing, Alec leaned back against his pillow. They allowed him that, at least, although sometimes they liked to take away his very few belongings to see how he would react. Sometimes he couldn’t help but give them a reaction, but it was never the one they wanted, or they would have stopped taking._ _

__Alec knew they were looking for something, searching for something that had to be inside of him. He had very few memories of his past, but what he did remember suggested that war was right on the doorstep, or perhaps wiping its feet on the doormat, already on its way in. He slept, and he saw flickers of ashen wastelands and broken, mangled cars and a piano with all the keys ripped out, blood splattered up the glossy sides. He had visions of smiles and tight frowns and long hair, and he didn’t know who they belonged to, but he felt like he missed them. He thought of golden eyes and ached._ _

__He knew that if he could only focus, if he could only leave this place, he would remember everything._ _

__The metal slot in the wall beneath the posters slid open with a sharp, grating sound. He couldn’t see a hand, but a bowl of liquid was pushed forward, and a plastic cup with a lid and a straw followed after it. Alec had opened the lid once, and immediately crumpled to the ground as a dart embedded itself in the back of his neck, flooding him with sleep. He had tried not drinking for days on end, too, until they stopped sending him food and he passed out again, waking up fully hydrated, a plastic cup mocking him from the ledge under the slot. Now, he simply drank whatever they gave him._ _

__It felt like giving in, but it had been so long that most of him didn't care about that anymore._ _

__The liquid was cold, but it was better than nothing. A faint bang from down the hallway outside of his cell made his eyebrows furrow, but he passed it off as nothing. Sometimes he saw other people being ferried along through the bars, always deathly quiet or whispering, but they never came this way. He had learned to quiet the voices inside him that yelled in rage, begging him to _do_ something, urging him to not give up. He hadn't given up. There was nothing to fight; this was just how it was. Now his rebellion was quieter, and he relished the aches the next morning. _ _

__All that was left to do in this life was wait._ _

__Another bang echoed down the hallway, louder this time, and the bright lights that lined his ceiling panels flickered once before an invisible force snuffed them out. The ever-present hum of distant machinery died down, leaving nothing but deafening silence in its wake. Alec put his empty bowl down slowly, his drink still untouched, as shouts and faint gunfire began to echo down the halls. He wiped his mouth with trembling fingers; his hands had always been steady before, but now they shook._ _

__A siren clicked on and wailed in the distance. Alarms had been triggered, alarms that Alec had never heard before._ _

__Emergency lights kicked into gear, bathing the walls in an eerie red. Alec stepped closer to the door, careful not to touch just yet. Sometimes the bars electrocuted him, and sometimes the darts hit him before he could get too close, but right now nothing seemed to be working. He shook the bars, feeling smooth, cold iron beneath his fingers, but all they did was rattle in protest. The locks were still fully functioning: they weren’t powered by machinery, or electricity, so they held firm._ _

__He was about to retreat back to his bed, to crouch and observe, when a body was flung at the wall at the end of the hallway, crumpling to the ground in a heap of grey uniform. A crackle of blue energy seeped across the white tiles, and Alec reared back in shock. It was like light, but it shivered and flowed like liquid, roiling like the underneath of an ocean._ _

__He backed up as the blue energy continued to ooze forward, and his ears picked up the clap of footsteps against polished tiles, growing louder with each passing second. Fumbling his hands along the desk nearby, Alec searched for something to hold, something to fight with. The pot of pencils tipped over, and he scrambled to grab a handful - red, green, orange, blue, yellow - and shoved them up the sleeve of his shirt. His clothes were rough cotton, black and thin, and they made an excellent hiding place for colourful weapons._ _

__“This could still be a test,” he reminded himself aloud. His voice was hoarse, whispering over the walls like spider legs, scuttling over his skin._ _

__It could still be a test, but that didn't mean that the danger wasn’t real. The danger was always real here, regardless of whether it was manufactured or not. Something was coming for him down the hall, and the voice in his head was screaming again, yelling at him to fight. It was impossible for him to ignore it this time._ _

__The footsteps grew louder, and someone rounded the corner. Alec blinked, holding his breath. He had expected a lot of things: military men in suits, clutching guns, ready to shoot, stun and kill; monsters of the kind he sometimes saw in his dreams, with their faces cracked open and blood pooling in their eyes; maybe someone he would know once their eyes met, someone who was looking for him, someone who missed him as much as he missed them._ _

__He was afforded none of those things._ _

__Instead, a man rounded the corner, a man in tight, deep blue clothes, with soft hair and bright, glowing eyes. Blue energy cascaded from his hands, and gold metal glinted at his throat and knuckles. His face was fierce. Alec hesitated, one of the pencils slipping down to rest under his forefinger, before he took a careful step forward._ _

__The man cocked his head a few steps from the doors. His eyes flicked down the length of Alec, taking in his bare feet and the circles beneath his eyes, the way his hair hung lank and greasy over his forehead, and the black, faded marks on his cheeks and neck. His eyes widened. For a minute, Alec felt as though he was stumbling about even though he stood still. Something about this moment, right here, this look, those eyes—it was all so familiar that it burned._ _

__“Darling,” the man said, after a moment of intense study. He fell silent, head still cocked, before he went on. “You look far too pretty to be trapped behind there. People need to know there’s still beauty left in this world, you know, and there’s only so much one man can do alone.”_ _

__He gestured at himself demonstrably, eyes glittering with untimely amusement. But there was something else there too. Alec gaped, taken aback. He crept closer to the bars, wary of the blue power. Alec hesitated again, but the bars didn’t do anything to him, and there were no darts piercing his skin, no shockwaves spasming through him. He wondered what had happened to the eyes behind the cameras and the voices in the walls, but another glance at the man, and the energy in his hands, and Alec thought he knew. His eyes drifted to the body further down the hallway, still a crumpled mess on the floor._ _

__“Not quite what I expected when I came here, I will admit, but you always were full of surprises,” the man murmured, sparks flickering off his skin. When he caught Alec’s eyes on him, he cleared his throat hastily. “Got a beautiful name to go with that beautiful face, sweetheart?”_ _

__“Alec,” Alec said, staring dubiously at those glowing eyes. They were pretty, no doubt, bright and otherworldly. He wondered how much they knew. “You?”_ _

__“Magnus Bane,” said the man, stretching a hand through the bars._ _

__Alec wondered if this was another test, but his heart was rocketing about in his chest anyway. It had been so long since anybody had touched him. He saw people from time to time, and their weapons often found a home in Alec’s gut, and there were voices from the speakers in the walls, but nobody had laid a hand on Alec in a while._ _

__He still found himself hesitating._ _

__“Too soon, perhaps,” Magnus said, withdrawing his hand; it was shaking too, just like Alec’s. Alec felt the loss like a stab to the gut, and he sucked in a breath to keep himself calm. A jittery feeling tiptoed through him._ _

__“I’ve never had a test like this,” Alec said, pressing closer to the bars anxiously._ _

__Magnus looked a little bemused. “You know, I’ve been called challenging, vexing, taxing, and test _ing_ , but never a test.”_ _

__Alec sucked in another breath. The jittery feeling increased. There was a chance, however slim, that this wasn’t part of the plan for the voices in the walls. Something else was at work here._ _

__“What are you doing here then? Can you get me out?” Alec said._ _

__He pressed himself as close to the cell door as he could, hands coming up to grip the bars. The pencil under his forefinger snapped with the weight of his grip, and the rest slipped out of his shirt and onto the floor, clattering against the cold tiles. Alec could hear the led inside the pencils breaking._ _

__Magnus pursed his mouth like he'd bitten something sour, but didn’t comment on the cascade of writing utensils. Instead, he turned slightly and let his blue energy, his _magic,_ sift through the hallways. Searching for something. _ _

__“I’m part of a team of people in search of something very important, something that was lost a long time ago,” Magnus explained._ _

__Alec licked his dry, chapped lips. “Something lost?” When Magnus simply hummed an affirmative, Alec watched the magic in awe. “What is that? How are you doing that?”_ _

__Magnus looked at him askance. “How did you get in there, Alec?”_ _

__His magic began to shift, turning back towards him. Alec watched it until he registered the question, suddenly, in a deeper part of him._ _

__“I don't remember.”_ _

__“Try.” Magnus scowled suddenly, staring determinedly at his magic, where it pooled on the ground. “Yes, I _know,_ Raphael, but this—this is too much.” _ _

__Alec swallowed thickly at the words, his stomach clenching tightly in fear and anticipation. Magnus wasn’t looking at him, but that didn't make his words any less important. Whoever Raphael was, Magnus seemed to be speaking to him, and his voice sounded so pained that it made Alec want to reach out._ _

__“Can you get me _out?”_ Alec asked again, and this time he could hear the rough desperation in his own voice. _ _

__Magnus’s eyes flickered from his magic to Alec, something dawning in his eyes. His voice grew softer. “Why are you here, Alec? Why were they keeping you here?”_ _

__Alec faltered, his fingers slipping down the bars. Wasn’t that the one question he’d been asking himself, in all the time he’d been here? Wasn’t that the one thing he’d been desperate to know?_ _

__“I don't know.” Alec swallowed against a flood of dizzy nervousness, and pressed on. “I don't even remember how I got here. I don't know how long it’s been. I think… I think I remember chains, being dragged here, and someone yelling, but it’s all fuzzy. Sometimes I remember arrows instead. I only remember when I sleep without… help, and it’s hard to sleep here.”_ _

__They had shaved his head, in the beginning. They had shaved it three times while he had been here, and now it was grown again. His cuts had healed, the poisons had been flushed through him, and he slept for hours upon hours whenever he passed out. The seconds and minutes added up, creating pictures that Alec didn't want to look at. It had been a long, long time._ _

__“Do you know why they took you? Do you know why you’re still here?” Magnus’s voice was pained, quiet. Not pitying, but deadly, as though he was going to find every last person responsible for this and break them. Alec felt a shudder roll up his spine._ _

__“I don't know,” Alec said. He grasped for an answer, and found the one that he had never given voice to before. “I think… I think they were looking for something. Something inside me. I think that’s what all the tests have been for, all the poisons, all the pain. They’re looking for a reaction, but if that _is_ what they want, then it’s one I can’t give them on purpose. It always feels like they’re waiting for something from me.”_ _

__Three seconds ticked by, silent and heavy._ _

__Magnus’s energy crackled, blue and brilliant. “Rest assured, darling, that they’re not waiting for anything anymore.”_ _

__Another shudder rolled through him, but this time it was a desperate sort of relief, the kind that made him want to cry. In the whole time that Alec had been here, he hadn’t cried. He had fought and kicked and yelled, and he had gone numb and quiet with rage, with resignation, and water had squeezed out of the side of his eyes when he held his breath for too long, but he hadn’t cried. Not with purpose._ _

__He wasn’t about to start now, not when he was so _close_ to escaping. _ _

__“Can you get me out?” Alec asked again._ _

__He shook the bars even harder this time, but the noise they made was quieter, like salt in a shaker rather than steel in desperate fists._ _

__“Yes,” Magnus said. “I promise, Alexander, I will get you out of here.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's sort of implied that Magnus knows Alec, and that they've met previously, but Alec doesn't remember him. I don't think they were together when Alec was taken, but Magnus definitely remembers him, and there was something there.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let me explain something to you, Alexander,” Magnus said quietly, and Alec jolted at the new name. He liked it, and it felt right, even though he’d only ever called himself Alec.

Sunlight was the thing that Alec missed most about the outside world. There were other things, more important things, like family and friends and a normal, everyday life, and not being tasered every time he had to go to the bathroom, but those things were so heavy and painful that it was too hard to think about them. 

Sunlight hovered in the back of his mind. It burned away the darkness that only a white cell could bring. The fluorescent strips of light in his cell were false, fake, put there to make it seem like _maybe_ he wasn't locked inside. Perhaps to trick him, to mock him, to taunt him with the possibility of light. They dug at him. They didn't warm him the way that sunlight used to, but sometimes his skin burned anyway. 

Sunlight was the thing he’d missed most, and there was none waiting for him outside. 

He stumbled out of the building that had been his only habitat for so long and blinked up at the sky. He expected pearly-white rays, a burning circle, and heat on his skin that sunk into his bones. Instead, there was nothing but ash in the air, thick and heavy, like soft rain. The sky was barren and black, full of dark, malicious clouds, and the wind was unhinged, lashing his skin. 

There was no sunlight, and no moon, either, and he couldn’t tell if it was night or day. He felt disappointment well up inside him, threatening to choke him, and he ruthlessly pushed it down as Magnus marched ahead. 

“You’ll need this, sweetheart,” Magnus said, whipping a long piece of cloth out of his pocket. 

Alec didn't know what to make of the soft names Magnus kept giving him. He had spent a long time being referred to vaguely, without a name, without even a number. He tucked each word from Magnus’s mouth into the hollow behind his ribs, where his identity stirred. 

Magnus did something complicated with his hands, and after a quick spark of blue, the cloth multiplied, until there were two identical pieces in his hands. He handed one to Alec, and then wrapped the other around his mouth and nose in demonstration, tying it at the back of his head. 

“To keep the ash out,” Alec muttered, and proceeded to do the same. He couldn’t quite make his hands do what he wanted, trembling as they were, but Magnus, who was watching him again, stepped forward. He was careful not to touch Alec as he gently tied the ends of the cloth at the nape of Alec’s neck, moving with quick precision. Alec found it hard to breathe as Magnus stepped close. His mind wanted to relax, but his body tensed anyway. 

He wanted touch, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask for it. 

Magnus stepped back after a moment, satisfied, and pointed towards a barbed wire fence in the near distance, taking off before Alec could do more than nod. The building where he had been kept was a Compound, a stack of grey brick and shining steel. Broken glass littered the rough stone under his feet. All of the windows had popped out and shattered, and he found himself thankful for the shoes Magnus had stolen from the crumpled man in the hallway, ripping them off his feet and handing them to Alec instead. They pinched a little, too small, made for war rather than comfort, but the pain barely registered. 

He also had one of their electric prods folded down and stuffed in the pocket of his cotton trousers, but he suspected he was shaking too much for it to do damage to anyone but him. 

Barbed wire fence lined the edge of the Compound, and Magnus led him to a cavernous rip in the metal, big enough for a small tank to fit through. The edges of the torn metal spikes glowed faintly blue, and Alec had no doubt they’d burn through his skin if he touched it, so he was careful when he slipped through. Magnus beckoned him across cracked, dry ground. It was hard to see very far with all the ash clouding the air, but Magnus seemed to know where he was going. 

Alec noticed when the ground began to change. There was no sound out here, the air muffled, but the unforgiving desert floor soon turned to mud and sickly yellow grass beneath his boots, and he felt the way it gave under pressure, could almost hear the squelch of mud that glued itself to the soles of his shoes. Magnus was swathed in blue light, still leading him through the grass, and then something dark and thin rose up on either side of Alec. 

The ash cleared, and Alec found himself in a cluster of trees. He remembered trees, he thought dazedly, as he stared around. It was silly to have forgotten them. The cloth came off, and he pressed both hands to the closest patch of rough bark as Magnus paused to fiddle with one of his gold rings. It flashed red briefly.

“That should lead them straight to us,” Magnus said, one hand still lightly pressed over his ring. “I imagine someone will be along shortly, considering I wasn’t supposed to be out anyway. It’s too far for us to walk back, so we’ll have to wait for a vehicle.”

Alec took his hands away from the tree before Magnus could question him, and slumped to the ground instead. He was on edge, every inch of him singing with the thrill of being outside. Cool air caressed his skin, and he had just touched something that wasn’t smooth, white walls. He couldn’t help but feel like something was right behind him, waiting to catch him unawares and laugh at his naivety.

“If you weren’t supposed to be out, and it’s too far for us to walk, how did you get here in the first place?”

“Ah,” Magnus said, settling down to his left and arranging his legs primly underneath him. “With my power, naturally. I can create portals from one place to another, but I used a lot of my energy when I took that Compound, and I don't think I would cope with creating a portal. I never like to drain my energy completely, and I don't want to be caught off-guard, or unconscious. Not out here.”

Alec nodded slowly, and then stifled a yawn against the back of his hand. 

“Nap-time?” Magnus asked, raising an eyebrow. Not mocking, exactly, or unkind, but Alec felt himself flush with embarrassment anyway. “I suppose escaping from prison can be a little tiring.”

It should have been exhilarating, rather than tiring. 

Realisation tapped politely on his skull. 

“The drink,” Alec said sluggishly. Magnus cocked his head and waited, and Alec shook the sleep from his eyes as he explained. “They only give me what I need to survive. I always have my drink for the day around now, but I was distracted by your… uh, entrance.”

Magnus hummed. “My entrance freed you, darling, so I’d say that warrants a little drama on my part. What does this drink do, exactly?”

“Keeps me alive, I think,” Alec said, picking at the dead, decaying grass near his knees. He wondered if it still rained out here. “They don't feed me much, and they wouldn’t let me look inside the cup, even though I tried, so I don't think it was plain water. It kept me alive, and it must have kept me awake. I think they wanted me awake so I could feel everything. That must be why I’m tired now.”

Alec winced. He hadn’t exactly meant to spill those thoughts. Magnus’s mouth tightened, but he didn't say anything, so Alec assumed he was safe for now. He let another yawn rip through him and leaned back against the tree. 

“Who’s coming for us?”

“My team, the one I told you about,” Magnus said, fiddling with his ring. “A very lovely redhead called Clary with a fiery temper. A sweet irritation in the form of a boy, otherwise known as Simon. I expect Raphael will come along simply to scold me for leaving on my own, and dear Catarina is in charge of our facility, so I expect she’ll remain behind, thinking of ways to humanely end me.”

Alec tensed, eyeing Magnus carefully. The fond smile was at odds with his words and the tired, world-weary way he spoke them. He felt his pulse pick up slightly, his rising panic muddled by confusion. He didn't understand how Magnus could just sit there calmly if he knew what was going to happen to him upon his return. Why had he called his team if he knew it meant his end?

“They’d kill you for disobedience,” Alec stated, nodding shortly. Panic began to eat him up on the inside. “Reason with them. You said you were looking for me, that I was what you needed to find. They might listen if you explained.”

Magnus stiffened, and his eyes bored into Alec’s. He seemed to be at a loss for words, but his gaze softened when he caught sight of Alec’s rigid face, and the careful way he held himself. He shook his head gently. 

“It was a figure of speech, darling,” Magnus explained, spreading his hands. “We don't kill, and we especially don't kill our friends or allies.”

At Alec’s incomprehension, Magnus shifted closer, and his hand stretched out again until it hovered over Alec’s wrist. Alec shivered, and after a moment’s hesitation, he slowly lifted his arm to close the distance, fingers grazing skin. 

It was like _fire._ Fire rippled over him, warmth burrowing down deep into his skin. There was no harm here, only warmth and protection. The sensation set him alight, and Alec breathed deeply, trying to steady himself as Magnus hummed something soothing. 

“Let me explain something to you, Alexander,” Magnus said quietly, and Alec jolted at the new name. He liked it, and it felt right, even though he’d only ever called himself Alec. “There are no tests with us. No experiments. No unnecessary pain, no keeping you awake so you can _feel_ it.” The level of disgust in Magnus’s voice made Alec shrink back, and the touch on his wrist turned even gentler, smoothing a pathway along his skin. “Nobody dies for any reason at our hands, let alone for small mistakes. We will protect you there.”

Alec swallowed. It didn't make sense, any of it. 

“You disobeyed, though,” he pointed out. “That always leads to punishment.”

Magnus shrugged delicately, although it was clear that he didn't feel as unconcerned as he pretended to be. “Catarina will yell for a while, out of worry, no doubt, but I’m an adult, and although there is a rough chain of command, I’m not a prisoner under her control. If I want to leave and never return, I can, although I doubt they will forgive me if it means I end up hurt or alone. The same will be said for you.”

Alec sucked in a breath, staring straight at Magnus. He was still lightly gripping his wrist, but the hold wasn’t restrictive, or constraining, but rather freeing. Just as his words were.

Magnus kept his voice gentle. “We are survivors, and we are dedicated to finding a way to heal this world, and the people in it. Our enemies, like the people who took you and held you captive, are the only ones I will willingly destroy without hesitation. Understand?”

Alec sank back against the tree and nodded. He didn't, not quite. There was always a point, no matter what people said, at which decisions had to be made, and sometimes that meant that people got hurt. Sometimes those people weren’t the ones you intended to hurt. Magnus couldn’t guarantee everything he’d just said, but it was whether or not he meant it all that kept Alec wary and silent.

Alec had learned that people rarely meant what they said. 

“I don't expect you to trust me straight away, Alexander, but I want you to know that I will not harm you,” Magnus murmured. He took his hand away and once again, Alec felt the loss keenly. He only just stopped himself from making a noise of discontent. Instead, he looked at this strange, unfamiliar man and he felt like he knew him, and that was enough for now.

“You got me out,” Alec said, unwilling to lie and say that he did trust Magnus. “You helped me escape. If you say you won’t hurt me then… I believe that.” 

Magnus’s answering smile was like sunlight.

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't like the stuff that I usually post, so I understand if it's not your cup of tea! I'm just posting stuff that's been sat in my documents for a while, making room for new things. Thank you very much, if you did decide to take a peek! I hope you enjoyed it! <3


End file.
